The Crisis Companion

 

Recently, TwoMorrows released The Crisis Companion by Kevin Miller. This is an in-depth look at Crisis on Infinite Earths, its antecedents, its concept, how it plays out issue by issue, and its legacy. Given my ongoing reread of the period of Crisis's publication on my other blog, I was very interested in getting this as soon as I could.

I haven't had a chance to read it in depth yet, but overall, I'd say it looks quite good. At 250 pages there is a lot of detail, and just from browsing it, I've already learned interesting details like how the decision to kill Supergirl was made.

I enjoyed Miller's speculation on how elements of the Crisis story may be metatextual commentary on Wolfman's feelings about writing it. This sort of literary theorizing I liked a lot. I was less pleased with his swipe at the "overly long" "Trial of the Flash" arc wherein he suggests it is the cause "in no small part" of Flash's decline in sales since its inception in 1959. I share his opinion that "Trial" is overly long, but Miller provides absolutely no evidence that sales of Flash declined more precipitously in the years between April of 1983 and June of 1985.  A cursory search online suggests that in fact its sales declined by a greater amount between 1980 and 1982 than 1983 to 1984.  Regardless, absent evidence I'm forced to conclude that either Miller was making a joke that just appears as a statement of fact or he's just being slack about providing the evidence for his claims.

This issue aside and even with a limited read, I think it's a fascinating work and worth adding to your collection if you are a DC or 80s comics history fan.

DC Omnibuses in 2027

Last week, DC dropped their omnibus release slate for the first half of 2027 and there is a lot of good stuff, or at least stuff I'm interested in.

Biggest for me is Suicide Squad by John Ostrander Vol. 3 (June 8). While the best of Ostrander's Suicide Squad material is probably in the earlier volumes, this was series I followed from the beginning, and I've been looking forward to having it all in omnibus format for some time.

After that one, I'm not sure what would be next on my list, but the contenders for that spot definitely include The Green Lantern by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp Omnibus (May 11), Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld (May 18), and Jonah Hex by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray Omnibus Vol. 1 (June 8). Probably the fact that we're actually getting an Amethyst omnibus has me most excited for that one, but the actual content of Green Lantern and Jonah Hex I am more looking forward to revisiting.

The third tier for me but still likely buys are Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Omnibus Vol. 1 (June 1), Wonder Woman: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1 (March 2), and Batman by Doug Moench Omnibus Vol. 1 (April 13).

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

 I caught Spider-Man: Brand New Day last weekend. It's of course the 4 in the joint Sony/Cinematic Marvel Universe Spider-Man series, following up on No Way Home's ending that had everyone forgetting Peter Parker thanks to a spell by Doctor Strange. 

Without going into explicit spoilers, I will say that despite the title reference to more modern Spider-Man comics, it made me think of Bronze Age Spidey comics as we have this happen:

And we get a subplot that may have been loosely inspired by this infamous arc:

Anyway, I enjoyed the film. I feel like it's one of the best of recent Marvel efforts, though that's perhaps damning with faint praise. In general, I think this Spider-Man series in one of the strongest of the CMU, even if it perhaps doesn't include any of the very the best films of the franchise.

My only quibble with it is in regard to the initial portrayal of Sadie Sink's mystery character--but I can't say more on that without spoiling the reveal.

Film Flashback: Dragon Inn (1967)

During a Criterion sale earlier this summer, I picked up Dragon Inn, a 1967 Taiwanese wuxia film directed by King Hu. I had seen Hu's Come Drink with Me (1966) from Shaw Brothers Studio and liked it so I decided to give this one a try. 

The titular Dragon Gate Inn is in sparse populated border area in northwest 15th-century China. There, three martial artists become involved in a plot by the power-hungry eunuch, Cao Shaoqin, and his ruthless Eastern Depot agents to assassinate the exiled family of a minister who was framed for treason and executed.

Hu's desert setting, design of the inn, and framing of the landscape recall Hollywood Westerns and perhaps Italian ones. His approach to fight choreography and fight scenes are swift and close quarters, at least until the final battle, more like Japanese chanbara films of the era than the wirework and dance like choreography of a lot of wuxia.

The toning of down of some (some!) of the eccentricities of the wuxia genre, and the Western style setup of a group of competent strangers defending an isolated location against the badguys makes this a good "gateway" wuxia to show someone new to the genre.

DC in the Early 80s

 Over on my other blog, I've been chronicling the week-by-week offerings of DC Comics from January 1980 cover dates to the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths in December, 1985 (cover date March 1988). I thought it would be interesting to compare the titles being published at the beginning of that period and those published at the end as an indicator of the change DC experienced over this period. 

So here are the DC publications in January of 1980 (cover dare April 1980):

In this list, superhero titles share the stands with war, horror, Western, Sword & Sorcery, and science fiction titles. These make up over 40% of the total offerings. Batman and Superman titles make up over 50% of the 15 superhero comics.

In lists to follow, ongoing titles are in black, new ongoings are in green, limited series in blue, and series that were cancelled from one list to the next are in red.

Here are the publications in July of 1983 (cover date October 1983), halfway between my chosen start and end points:

Ten of the 1980 titles are no more, and 7 of those cancelled titles were non-superhero books. Only House of Mystery remains of the old horror line. Still, it isn't a complete shift to superheroes. Of the new titles we have Sword & Sorcery (Arak) and high fantasy (Amethyst and Arion), war (Blackhawk), and horror (Saga of the Swamp Thing). I suppose Omega Men could be considered a science fiction or at least space opera book of a sort, too. What is definitely disappearing is anthology books, though. G.I. Combat and House of Mystery are the only two left.

Limited series, a relatively new phenomenon, account for 4 of the current series (I miscolored Ronin).

Now, let's take a look at the comics being published in December of 1985 (cover date March 1986):

Sixteen of the series in 1980 are now gone, and those include Wonder Woman and World's Finest with runs back to the Golden Age, and Flash, that ushered in the Silver Age. Teen Titans, the Outsiders, and the Legion of Super-Heroes join Batman and Superman in the ranks of heroes with multiple books, though theirs exist to capitalize on the different tastes of the direct market. The Tales of books are also both reprint series.

Of the new titles in the '83 list, only the superhero or superhero adjacent titles (Swamp Thing and Omega Men) are still around. Of 31 ongoing titles, only 7 are non-superhero books (not counting the genre-straddling Omega Men).

Limited series are even more common than in '83 as are licensed books. There are two ongoing series (Star Trek and V) of licensed properties.

Return of the Avatar

 My daughter has been rewatching Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender, so it was serendipitous when I saw the news the other day that the sequel film Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender was going to be released to Paramount+ later this month!

I've known about the upcoming film for some time that fills in some of the period between the series A:TLA and The Legend of Korra, but I was expecting it in October, because that was its original release date. Speculation on the internet suggests this moved up release date had to do with the film getting leaked to the internet back in April. It's unfortunate that this may have led to the cancelling of the release to theaters, but an earlier date is welcome.

Here's the final trailer for the film:

Another Reminder You Should be Reading Flash Gordon

I've praised Dan Schkade's on-going run on the Flash Gordon comic strip on King Feature's Comics Kingdom (and apparently still in some newspapers), but I felt like I should do so again. It's really good, so I don't want you to forget it.

Historically, those that followed Raymond on the strip have stuck to the formula of fantasy adventure in exotic locales. Some of the early authors also mimicked the Raymond strips frequent love-triangle melodrama, but that seems to have fallen away in later years. What came in instead though is a tendency to use only the sandbox of the Raymond years as canon rather than the interplanetary adventures of creators than followed.

Schkade's follows the sticking to Mongo approach and seems to stick mostly with a "Raymond years only" canon, though there are occasional nods to later writers and to Flash in other media beyond the strip. What Schkade adds that no one else has (outside of some of the comic book versions) is a further depth to the world. The various rulers of Mongo have their own motivations and political aspirations that made them allies against Ming, but rivals in the post-Ming world. Ming has a backstory and point of view that makes him understandable if no more commendable. As in the strip above, we get the point of view of someone who follows him.

Schkade does this without changing the essential nature of the strip from fast-paced adventure. It's a worthy addition to Flash Gordon's storied history, and I hope it gets collected in a physical format one day.